Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the western United States. The state is the tenth largest by area, the least populous and the second least densely populated state in the country. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city in Wyoming, with a population estimate of 63,335 in 2015. The state population was estimated at 586,107 in 2015, which is less than the population of 31 of the largest U.S. cities.
The western two-thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High Plains. Almost half of the land in Wyoming is owned by the U.S. government, leading Wyoming to rank sixth in the United States in total acres and fifth in percentage of a state’s land owned by the federal government. The federal lands include two national parks—Grand Teton and Yellowstone—two national recreation areas and two national monuments, as well as several national forests, historic sites, fish hatcheries, and wildlife refuges.
The Crow, Arapaho, Lakota, and Shoshone were some of the original inhabitants of the region. Southwestern Wyoming was included in the Spanish Empire and then Mexican territory until it was ceded to the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican–American War. The region acquired the name Wyoming when a bill was introduced to Congress in 1865 to provide a “temporary government for the territory of Wyoming.” The territory was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, with the name ultimately being derived from the Munsee word xwé:wamənk, meaning “at the big river flat.”
The mineral-extraction industry—especially coal, oil, natural gas, and trona—along with the travel and tourism sector, are the main drivers behind Wyoming’s economy. Agriculture has historically been an important component of the state economy with the main commodities being livestock (beef), hay, sugar beets, grain (wheat and barley), and wool. The climate is generally semi-arid and continental, being drier and windier in comparison to the rest of the United States, with greater temperature extremes.
Except for the 1964 election, Wyoming has been a politically conservative state since the 1950s, with the Republican party winning every presidential election
As specified in the designating legislation for the Territory of Wyoming, Wyoming’s borders are lines of latitude, 41°N and 45°N, and longitude, 104°3’W and 111°3’W (27° W and 34° W of the Washington Meridian), making the shape of the state a latitude-longitude quadrangle. Wyoming is one of only three states (along with Colorado and Utah) to have borders along only straight latitudinal and longitudinal lines, rather than being defined by natural landmarks. Due to surveying inaccuracies during the 19th century, Wyoming’s legal border deviates from the true latitude and longitude lines by up to half of a mile (0.8 km) in some spots, especially in the mountainous region along the 45th parallel. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, containing 97,814 square miles (253,340 km2) and is made up of 23 counties. From the north border to the south border it is 276 miles (444 km); and from the east to the west border is 365 miles (587 km) at its south end and 342 miles (550 km) at the north end.